


fusion, freedom, reinvention

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, anyway., man. this relationship hits different. god. fuck. fuck. shit. god., post episode 'volleyball'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26227876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: What happened to her was wrong. What happened to them both was wrong.Pearl says so.Volleyball stiffens and then slowly looks back at her, her gaze tenuous and aching. For a long time she says nothing. Then, in a whisper: “How many times will we have to realise that?”Pearl closes her eyes. “The rest of our lives.”
Relationships: Pearl/Pink Diamond’s Original Pearl | Volleyball
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	fusion, freedom, reinvention

“And you’d,” she looks down at her delicate fingers, “Fused before?”

“Yes,” Pearl admits, looking at the slight gem beside her with a feeling she can’t describe. Shining and spilling. Light on the water.

‘Volleyball,’ as she calls herself, has a brittleness about her Pearl has long since cast off. She keeps her hand in Pearl’s and Pearl looks down at it, stroking it gently. Her fingers are thinner, her nails still painted with intricate diamond designs. If Pearl looks closely, she thinks she can see a pink flush returning to her skin. But it could be a trick of the light. It’s early morning; they have watched the shifting sea all night.

“Did you ever…” her voice is so soft, barely a breath above the waves and shivering like foam. Her thin lips are the colour of hibiscus. “Fuse with… Pink?”

“With Rose,” Pearl says honestly, almost forgiving her voice its slight tremor. She swallows. “Yes,” she says more firmly. “Rainbow--Rainbow Quartz.”

Volleyball’s eye widens, crinkles into an attempt at a smile. “Quartz.”

“It’s--well, yes.” She doesn’t mention that Steven can do it, too. “That’s what we called ourselves.”

“I’m sure you were beautiful.”

“We were,” replies Pearl, her voice low and warm. For a moment, she can recapture it, the feeling of length and height and hair, her grace and Rose Quartz’s power, the love between them given shape. The ability to exist with her, even briefly, is still one of the most powerful sensations Pearl has felt. She is… extricable, now.

As if activated by the stretching sun, Volleyball rises onto her toes like a dancer and sinks into the sand, loosing her hand from Pearl’s and pulling her knees up to her chest. Pearl, unwilling to let her go, sits with her.

The first rays of sun skid across the surface of endless water to land across the foreheads and tucked-up knees of the two small Pearls settled close enough to lean on each other.

Volleyball’s lashes are long and a dark magenta. Her nose is slightly smaller than Pearl’s; hers tilts upward while Pearl’s points perfectly out. Her unblinking eye is fixed on the horizon.

“I don’t think,” and Volleyball’s face shivers in reflexive fear, as pearls do not say _don’t_ , “I don’t think Rainbow Quartz was your first fusion.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Pearl snaps. If she had--if Pink had--even _now_ , the implication of a Pearl and a Diamond, close, chest-to-chest, dancing, _fusing_ \--

Volleyball, hurt, stares down at the sand beneath her. Fingernails scratch at its surface, shift its grains, unearth a shell. Volleyball gasps and drops it with a start.

“I’m sorry,” Pearl says, laying her hand on Volleyball’s shoulder. The shoulder shifts but doesn’t fight the gesture.“I just don’t know what you mean,” Pearl explains, gentling her voice and letting her hand fall back into the sand. “I never fused with Pink Diamond.”

“A fusion is--” Volleyball’s hesitation, her bowed neck and the deference in her voice, fan a spark of rage that should have flamed inside Pearl since she first turned her eyes toward Homeworld. “A combination of two gems, their lives, their…” her fingers find each other and interlace. “Love.” After a pause, “The best of both.”

“Yes,” Pearl confirms, unaware she’s blushing a pale blue. 

Volleyball nods.

“Like Rainbow Quartz,” Pearl supplies.

“Like Rose Quartz,” Volleyball murmurs. She tears her gaze from Pearl back to the half-finished sunrise, her eye glassy as if with tears. 

Pearl draws back physically from the words. After a moment, she takes them inside her, posts them up and examines them as if their letters will shift and their meaning rearrange if she gives them enough scrutiny.

She jabs them quizzically with the point of her spear, but they remain resolute. In a way, Volleyball is right. Rose Quartz had the best of Pink. And, Pearl realises with something like pride, the best of Pearl.

It could have been Volleyball.

The light is bringing life to the pink pearl’s skin as she nestles into herself, dwarfed by the enormity of the ocean before her. _Pearl_ could be sitting there with Volleyball behind her. _She_ could have been broken and discarded and abused.

What happened to her was wrong. What happened to them _both_ was wrong.

She says so.

Volleyball stiffens and then slowly looks back at her, her gaze tenuous and aching. For a long time she says nothing.

Then, in a whisper: “How many times will we have to realise that?”

Pearl closes her eyes. “The rest of our lives.”

Volleyball sniffs, pushes a gloved finger across her face, turns away from Pearl again.

“May I sit by you?” Pearl asks. The question makes Volleyball stiffen again.

“Yes,” she says in a trembling voice. It sounds like a release.

Pearl rises and takes a step forward, dropping down beside Volleyball again. Volleyball makes a small sound and hurls herself sideways, burying her face in Pearl’s chest. Pearl tucks her chin above the pink gem’s head, wraps her arms around her.

Over and over, Pearl strokes Volleyball’s hair while Volleyball shakes, wracked by sob after sob that has been imprisoned as long as she has. She clutches at Pearl’s jacket, at the fabric below it, clinging like a cat to Pearl’s narrow back. Pearl holds her and protects her, keeps her secure as her sobs subside to sniffles. Afterward, Volleyball lies limp against Pearl’s body, one arm draped over her shoulder and the other looped around her back. 

Pearl lets her face fall into the crook of Volleyball’s neck. They stay still, wrapped in each other, as the sun lets go of the lip of the ocean and rises properly into the air.

“All this,” Pearl says finally, raising her head to look at the Temple, then Beach City, then at Little Homeworld in the distance. Gems can live here. Gems can learn to _laugh_ here.

She stares at Earth, at the land and the sea and the sky. Not drained by injectors. Not covered in weapons. Not blasted out of its solar system by a Geo-weapon made by torture. Earth, _home_ , turning and growing and breathing and _there_.

“All this… started with you,” Pearl tells Volleyball, wonder in her voice. “You made a Diamond want to change.”

Volleyball pulls back from Pearl, just enough to meet her eyes. She absorbs the words and smiles weakly. “You’re the reason she changed into something _good_.”

Then they laugh.

They’re not sure why. Because she is Diamond and Quartz, Pink and Rose, ruler and rebel, bad and good--and, most importantly, _gone_.

“Thank you,” Pearl says to Volleyball.

Volleyball squeezes her tighter. “Thank _you_.”


End file.
